Jodi Picoult
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Melody M.K. Small Great Things is the story of Ruth Jefferson, an African American labor and delivery nurse with twenty years of experience working in hospitals on the East coast. When a couple requests that no person of color touch their baby, the hospital complies and assigns a new nurse. But later, due to an emergency, Ruth is left in the nursery by herself, and the baby goes into cardiac arrest. She hesitates before performing CPR, but there is no way to save the baby.
Ashley Hope Perez
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Emily D. Out of Darkness is a heartbreaking and powerful read. This is a story about racism, disaster, love and hope.
Naomi is a 17-year-old Mexican living with her half siblings and white stepfather in New London, Texas, in 1937. Naomi is in danger of her stepfather's wrath and abuse, but she'll do anything for her siblings.
Angie Thomas
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Caitlin T. This book captivated me in a way YA has failed to do for quite some time. In a genre saturated with cliché romances, vampires, or terminally ill teens, this book was refreshingly realistic and substantive.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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Melody B.K. This book is about love, racism, the immigrant experience and hair. Nigerian born Ifemelu arrives in America and blogs about her experiences as a non-American black person in the US. She leaves behind the love of her life, Obinze who has his own immigrant experience in England. In the end, she returns to Nigeria and to Obinze.
Brianna Karp
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Helen H. Reading Brianna Karp’s memoir of losing her job, home, and family reminded me in many ways of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. Except instead of embarking on a months-long solo hike, as Strayed did, Karp faces the challenges of living in a trailer in a Walmart parking lot. With no water or electricity. Frustration at Brianna’s “unwise” choices (surrounding her involvement with a fellow homeless gent) is always followed by a heart-wrenching family story that would have left me a gelatinous blob.
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